The Obligatory Piggyback Fic
by Von
Summary: You know the drill, Story B unfolds with the addition of Character A. Hopefully, this story does some things a little differently.
1. Chapter 1

I got PM'ed with a challenge. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Short, sweet chapters. Minimal re-treading of What Has Gone Before. A little time-shifting right at the start, to line up the fandoms.

Warning: Possible minor cheap-as-chips plot device, because I'm a lazy writer.

**The Obligatory Piggyback Fic**

Harry Potter died outside Schwarz Toy Store in New York.

He was fifteen.

Not permitted to enter with Dudley and the rest of his family, who'd taken malicious joy in denying him _on his birthday_ no less, he'd been leaning against the glass front when out of _nowhere_ a screaming man tackled him backwards through it.

He saw his own blood spray through the air as the rabid man tore into his throat, jaws inhumanly tight, flesh ripping away with each twist of his head.

He heard screaming, felt people running, may have seen a large dark shape tackle his attacker off of him before everything faded.

It was just one attack out of dozens. The only thing that stood out about it later, that was recorded in the news, was that the entire store burned to the ground.

Two days later and more than thirty surrounding hospitals were hotbeds of infection, spilling out crazed killers like human pus into the world.

A nameless, black-haired, green-eyed baby lying in the smoking ruins of a cordoned off building had its neck violently snapped through rough handling, as a set of teeth closed around its ribcage.

The ruins burned again.

_**Five years later**_

"Find anything?"

Mark half-glared at his partner's impatient voice. Tess - no last name these days, nothing the government could track you with - had always been a strong woman, but with curled hair and pretty nails she'd been strong like gilded steel.

Now she was _just_ steel, rusted and raw, unyielding and unfeminine.

But she was still a woman. He was counting on that, because he couldn't justify his own desires any more. The world no longer had room for a SNAG.

"Found this." He heaved the bundle up into the back of the flatbed, Tess pulling aside the blanket-

She levelled a flat look at him.

"And what're we supposed to do with _this_?"

Mark shrugged and tossed his duffel up into the flatbed behind her. He'd scored a hypochondriac's house this run, a veritable goldmine of meds that everyone wanted even if they weren't as rare as the prescription stuff.

"Hunters'll trade for 'im." He offered blandly, casting another eye around. The exterior of Greensboro had been heavily bombed to give the construction crews time to fortify the city itself, but it had been long enough now that infected were creeping back in.

Tess spat a curse at him and he turned away to hide his grin.

"Now Tess, you know how people talk. There ain't no proof they actually _eat _people."

"Sure." Tess cut back, the baby in her arms by the time he turned around. It was a skinny thing, naturally, its skin a bit blackened by the soot of its surroundings but otherwise healthy. As naked as it had been, it'd been easy to check for bites.

"Cannibalism, maybe, slave trade? Definitely."

"Fer a baby?" Mark got in the truck, eyeing the low fuel glumly. It was gettin' harder and harder to find an un-siphoned source. The window between the cab and the back was open and he heard Tess settling down beside it. He started the engine and raised his voice.

"Worse that happens is they sell it to some woman who wants a kid but can't have it herself without the right vouchers."

"Don't be stupid." Tess grumbled. "You should have left it where you found it. Hell, we don't even know if it's clean. It mighta breathed in some spores, you don't know."

"Then we get it checked out. Macy's got one of 'em new scanners back at base."

"And then what? Another mouth to feed?"

"There's always the hunt-"

"We ain't _sellin' it_ to the damned _hunters!"_

"Yes ma'am." He grinned.

_TOPF_

"Ohh, whattya gonna call him?"

"Dog Food."

"Tess!"

His partner scowled over at him, still sour at having been somewhat pushed into keeping the baby. Macy, twenty three years old and as book-smart as she was street-dumb, cooed over it.

"We can still get rid of it." Tess argued, weaker than she probably intended. "Just- dump it at the hospital, like all the other illegal babies."

Macy gasped shrilly and snatched the baby up into her arms. Eye twitching, Tess reached out and righted it so it wasn't upside down.

"You can't do that!" Marcy hissed, oblivious. "They _euthanize_ them!"

"There's a reason for that." Tess reminded her dryly. "People are cheap, food isn't." She shook her head and turned to Mark.

"This is a fool idea. He'll cost us more than food. Clothing, medicine, time - at least ten years before he's good for anything and then what? Pack him off to a work group? Hope he'll provide for us in our old age? C'mon, Mark, let's just-"

"Let's just what?" Mark confronted her directly, waving at Marcy who took the hint - for once in her life - and carried the baby into the next room. "What, Tess? Snap its little neck ourselves? Because that's what we'd be doing by getting rid of it. Are you that kinda woman now? Infanticide a part of your skill set?"

She set her jaw but looked away.

He sighed.

"Look, Tess. It's just… _I can't_. Okay? I found him and… I dunno, he looked at me and I just… I couldn't. I'll take care of the ration cards, the medicine - whatever he needs, I swear. I just… I need you to-"

"To be the irrational, emotional woman?" Tess raised an eyebrow, scorn concealing her understanding. Mark risked a chuckle.

"Naw, nobody'd ever believe that of _you_, Tess. But stubborn? Yeah. Ornery too. If'n I tell people that _you_ decided to keep him, ain't nobody gonna look at you sideways lest they get _shot_. But me?"

Tess scrubbed a hand through her hair. Stared at the wall. Looked at him.

He broke out his biggest smile, snatching her to him and doing his best to spin them around.

"Yeah yeah, dance later princess." Tess shook her head at him, smiling despite herself even as she shoved him back. A finger was thrust in his face. "But _you_ are goin' short if the rations run low, y'hear me?"

He grinned.

"Yes ma'am."

She snorted, but allowed him to crowd closer again for a quick kiss.

"You gotta name for him?" She asked once they'd parted. "Because I'm not gonna lie, Dog Food's kinda growing on me."

Mark tilted his head a little.

"Eh. Actually, I was thinkin'… Harry?"

She stilled. Harry was a risk, a mine waiting to blow. But he loved her and she'd loved _him_. Her big brother, Harry, the first infected she'd ever had to kill.

"…Harry it is."

_**Seven years later**_

"Mom! _Mom!_ Over here!"

Tess snarled silently as Mark chuckled.

"I am gonna _tan that boy's hide_." She growled, the two of them picking their way through the unstable building. One of the primary support beams had crumpled but the rest were still standing. For now. Worse was that the infected could be anywhere and _by God_ she'd taught the boy _better_ than to make so much _goddamn noise_, hadn't she?

"You _know_ he's found a motherlode." Mark grinned at her, maybe to calm her down for their son's sake but probably just enjoying her temper. He always _did_ get a kick out of it, when it wasn't directed at him. "He always does. We shoulda named him 'bloodhound'."

"That ain't no excuse fer shoutin'." She bit back, ears pricked for the shuffle and moans of the newly infected or - god help them - clicking.

When they got to the place their wild-child brat of a kid had run off to, however, Mark was proven right.

Green eyes shining over a shit-eating grin, Harry held open a concealed door to reveal what must have once been somebody's panic room. It was floor-to-ceiling stocked with everything an end-of-the-world enthusiast with too much money could want. Not just food and medicine but batteries, compact generators, a still, any-weather gear and more.

"I don't know how you do it." Tess shook her head. "But you're damned lucky you _do_." She swatted him upside the head, measures more gentle than she would have without such a haul softening her ire. Harry just ducked his head under it, grinning still. The cheeky brat knew just how much he could get away with, with her. "Or I'd put you over my knee right here and now, forget the infected."

Inside the room, Mark whistled.

"There's a goddamn solar hot water system in here. I'd like to find this crazy bastard and shake his goddamn hand."

"You may get the chance." Tess warned. "Grab the best items and let's go. We've got a walk ahead of us we don't want to be weighed down for."

Harry frowned.

"But what if other people find the stash and take it?" He asked, young voice still holding that weird British tinge to every other vowel. It baffled everyone in their group. One day he'd sound as American as every other kid on the street, the next like he'd stepped out of a BBC tv show. Mostly he spoke with a bastardised mix that got him mocked a whole lot.

"Is that gonna happen?" Mark asked, faux-casual. That was another thing about Harry. Sometimes he just _knew_ things. As he got older, it got easier to tell when he _knew_ and when he was fronting a guess as fact. The squint on top of his frown meant he wasn't sure himself.

"Maybe we can hide it." She suggested, already casting an eye over the wall. Looking at it now, she had no idea how Harry could have spotted it. The door had been painted over and - judging by the amount of paint chips on the ground _not_ covered in dust - hadn't been opened again until just now.

Although that then begged the question of how seven-year-old Harry_ had_ opened it.

"Not much we can do." Mark observed, coming out to stand with her and dragging his son into a hug under one arm. "'Cept push it closed and hope for the best."

Sighing, she nodded. It'd be a shame to lose such good pickings to another group of scavengers, though.

A thought occurred and she slanted a speculative look down at Harry.

"You been workin' on your aim?"

Harry looked up at her and nodded. Mark frowned at her. She ignored him.

"How'd you feel about runnin' escort, this time around?"

Harry brightened, Mark darkened. The kid was issued a gun on these runs as a last-resort, normally being little more than a pack mule learning the ropes - except for when he bucked orders and ran off to discover something. He was normally the protect_ed_, not protect_or_.

"Tess.." Mark started. She waved a hand at him, impatient.

"The two of us can carry more, faster, than he could. You know he's a crack shot on the range and it was quiet comin' in. If'n there's any trouble, he's only gotta buy us enough time to drop what we're carryin' and draw ourselves."

"Turnin' _one_ into a _dozen_." He argued. She shrugged.

"So, we sneak." She turned to Harry. "You got that, kiddo? We wanna be nice and quiet headin' back. If you see somethin', don't go shootin' all at once. Y'hear?"

Harry nodded, excitement leeching away to leave something more reassuringly serious. His little hands unsnapped and checked his pistol, making sure the safety was on before checking his rounds. He only had five.

Mark was still glaring at her, but he knew as well as she did that kids couldn't stay kids forever. Especially not one raised by a couple of scavengers. Today would be one of those days where what he learned would help keep him alive later in life.

"Alright then." Tess settled the matter. "Let's load up."

_TOPF_

Harry wound up stuffing his own backpack full of candy. He'd plead long and hard for the bars of chocolate but after more than a decade they weren't worth risking. Luckily, the little room had a store of hard candy and Harry had contented himself with opening and emptying tin after tin of fruit-flavoured sugarballs into his backpack - no doubt he'd portion them out and trade them with other kids for comics and coloured pencils back in the city, a little black market all of his own.

Tess had to admit, if only to herself, that she was damned proud of the cute little brat. For all the times he disappeared and threatened her with heart failure or a stroke from pure rage, he followed it up with canny suspicion of strangers and a selfless affection for her and his father. She never called him son, never claimed him as such and had never taught him to call _her_ 'mom' but…

But if she was ever gonna _have_ a kid, she couldn't ask for better than the likes of Harry.

He was doing a good job of escorting her and Mark, too. He moved much more slowly than usual, cautious with the weight of their safety on his shoulders. Maybe a little _too_ slowly, but one look at Mark's stern expression had her biting her tongue.

She and Mark were loaded to the gills and she just wanted to get to the damned truck already, but if shit hit the fan there was no way they'd be able to outrun anything but a bloater. So, she followed their littlest member silently, hanging back to watch their six as Mark paced along behind his son.

None of them saw the stalker until it was too late.

Harry was leading and it went for him first, screeching as it sprung the ambush. Jolting like a startled cat, Harry couldn't get his gun up in time-

Tess had barely dropped her armload before Mark _dove_ in front of his son, shielding the boy with nothing but his own body. His arm and shoulder were bitten, torn, once, twice, three times before the stalker's head exploded in a mess of blood and fungal brain matter.

Tess found her gun in her hands, no memory of how it got there, her lungs burning as she stared at the bloodied form of her best friend, partner, lover, _Mark no!_

Mark groaned and pushed up, off of his son, whose eyes were so wide they were like little white beacons in the gloom. His pistol was still clenched in one hand, unfired.

Through the drone of horror and denial, Tess felt a surge of… of _anger_.

"You okay?" Mark checked, eyes and hands running over his boy, ignoring the messy - fatal - wounds of his own. Harry just nodded, silent. Only then did Mark look up to her.

He knew. She knew. It was in both of their eyes, the new reality of their lives. The ugly, brutal, gut-wrenching nightmare that everyone feared but no-one thought would happen to _them_ until… it did.

He was infected. He would turn, possibly within hours.

He stood, slowly, gathering the items he'd dropped, hiding the pain.

"Let's get this to the truck." He said into the silence. "Then… we'll take it from there."

They moved. Tess, almost numb to the world, couldn't take her eyes off of him. She moved when he did, crouched when he did, was blind to everything but him.

Then they were at the road, the truck, the sun dipping below the horizon and their backpacks and armloads of junk - useless _junk_, why had they fucking even _bothered_ with it - piled in the flatbed.

Mark crouched by Harry first, hugging him gently with his one unbitten arm. Harry barely responded, eyes still wide, arms stiff at his side.

"I love you." Mark was saying quietly, for Harry's ears only but Tess' ears were ringing with how sharp they were, like she could hear every infected for miles around right now.

"You be a good boy for Tess, okay? Stick with her, take care of her, do what she says. She'll take care of you now."

Tess shook her head, looking away. He didn't get to fucking say that, to make that promise for her. He was… he was fucking _leaving_ and- and it was because-

She cut the thoughts off before they could finish, grief and rage coiled tightly under her iron control. Then Mark was standing in front of _her_ and she couldn't look at him, couldn't, not without losing her last grip on herself.

"_Tess_." Soft, entreating, apologising. She shut her eyes to it, to him, the selfish _stupid_ bastard.

A warm hand, rough and familiar, cupped her arm and slid up to her shoulder, her neck, her jaw.

She swallowed, something wet leaking from under her eyelids.

"Tess, _baby__… I'm sorry_."

She opened her eyes, glared at him, fought and lost against the wobble in her lips and nose. He was crying too, looking so god-damned guilty she just wanted to _hit_ him.

Or kiss him. But she _couldn't_ kiss him, not ever again because he was infected now and saliva could carry the infection before it manifested anywhere else.

She breathed out, hard, return breath like a sob.

"You'd better go." She ground out, voice crackling. "It's already been at least an hour."

He smiled at her then, a gut-punch reminder of all the times he's smiled, amused and attracted by her fuck-you, shameless sheer _strength_.

"Yeah." He agreed. "I'll-"

"I'll do it." She cut him off brutally. They'd spoken about this before, in each other's arms, their fears and wants. To be infected was bad enough. To have to scrounge the strength and courage to defeat their own survival instinct long enough to pull that final trigger was something they'd promised each other they'd never have to do. Not so long as the other could do it _for_ them.

He nodded. Tried to smile for her again. Managed a better one for Harry, then turned and walked painfully away. His arm was already puffy red and blistering.

She shot him the second he stepped off the road, before he could wonder too long.

Something in her heart cracked and Harry started crying, quiet little gasps she didn't have any time for.

"Get in the truck." She ordered, rounding it to get behind the wheel. The passenger door opened and shut, Harry buckling himself in with trembling hands - hands that had never fired a _goddamn shot_.

She started the car and drove, never looking back.

An hour later, half an hour out from where they could unload to the local smugglers, she heard his belt buckle click open. A small weight moved closer to her, a tiny clammy hand reaching for hers, resting on the bench beside them.

She snatched it away, the violence of the movement making the seven-year-old flinch back.

"…Mom." Harry whispered, voice wet. Her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.

"I'm not your mom." She bit out, hard and unforgiving. "I was just your dad's partner. Don't ever call me that again."

Harry didn't answer, just retreated back to his side of the cab and curled up. Part of her felt like she _should_ feel guilty. He was just a kid, he didn't deserve being lashed with her pain. It had been her idea that put him in the position of guard. Stalkers were known to successfully ambush even experienced adults, let alone a green pre-teen.

But for once, her rational mind drowned under her emotions. Grief was just too strong and for _years_ her reaction to grief had been anger.

So she didn't feel guilty at all. All through the rest of the drive, the haggling and the sale, she did her level best not to feel anything at all.

And when they got back to base and found the note Marcy had left - off with the Fireflies for good this time, the idealistic idiot - along with the bed she and Mark had once shared but never would again… well. She was practical. When a situation turned to shit, you moved on.

"Pack up, Harry." She ordered, already moving to do so herself. "We're leaving."

She'd heard they were still working on a cure in Nashville. It was as good a place as any to start over. And this time, she'd leave the scavenging to the fools who didn't know better.

**TOPF**

So yeah, I don't normally like the stories that have 'Insert character A into story B's plotline' but when the person-who-does-not-wish-to-be-named brought it up with me, I found it kind of growing in my brain…

…like a FUNGUS!

So yes, in this story Harry will be around for pretty much all the events as it unfolded in Last of Us but I won't just re-write the game with a cut-out of Harry lurking in the background. In fact, after the set-up is complete, I'll probably skip most of the game until and unless Harry's presence actually affects things.

Does he have his magic? YES! Does he have a wand/awareness of such? NO! Will his magic come into play? PROBABLY! Although, it'll likely be in ways similar to what we've seen already. 

_In other news, today was the first time that I twigged that 'Tess' from Last of Us and 'Tess' from Jak n Daxter share the same name. Hee._


	2. Chapter 2

Listening to the soundtrack for this game is very inspiring.

I check my facts on the wiki, but please do let me know if you spot obvious errors.

**The Obligatory Piggyback Fic**

They'd been running this play for three years now and it never got any easier.

When the call came in Tommy's stomach turned over. Joel was already getting ready, shrugging on his homemade holster and checking his reach. His face was carved from stone, cold and unflinching like it'd been every day since Sarah had died.

It had become painfully obvious over the past few years that part of Joel had died right along with her. The big brother he thought he knew would _never_ do what they were doin' now. It had been hard, after Austin, just survivin'. Escaping the crazed infected, dodging pitiless troops and making their way by foot and wheel, living hand to mouth, fighting other survivors for resources and just plain _survival_.

It had worn on them both, but whilst _he_ was crumbling under it, Joel was sharpening.

And then they'd fallen in with this group in Southaven, several men of many who'd been rejected by the army encampment in Memphis.

"_Women and children only._" _One of them spat. "Like the fucking Titanic."_

It had started just as a way to survive. Waylaying travellers on their way into the city, relieving them of only what they needed. Then, taking everything - because with Winter closing in and the flood of people winding down, they needed to plan ahead.

Then, after the army had finally come and wiped their little bandit camp off the map, they moved to Lebanon and someone - God please let it not have been Joel - had the brilliant idea that the dead couldn't complain to the army about them.

It was for their own survival and it had been _so easy_ to believe that, to _do_ it. To line up some grubby husband or father or brother in his sights and take them down before they even knew they were in danger.

And at the junction of four main roads, adjacent to a highway… there had been a lot of husbands, fathers, brothers… along with wives, mothers and sisters.

And kids. God help them.

And here he was, doing it all over again. His hands shook as he looked through the scope of his rifle, only the weight of his body keeping it steady. It was a larger caravan, an army truck with civvies riding on the top - so either carrying a lot of luggage or people on the inside. It was all the same in the end.

The woman driving was a hard-faced affair and Tommy swallowed against the possibility of having to kill her. It was normally his job, to disable the driver if they didn't stop for the bait on the ground.

The truck drifted and his scope slid over to a head of black hair - a kid, sitting subdued and still but whose eerie green eyes suddenly _snapped up and fucking looked straight at him_!

Tommy jerked away from the scope with a curse, heart pounding. He couldn't have been spotted, he was too far away, in the shadows…

_And yet he had, _must have in fact, considering the truck was suddenly screeching to a halt in a cloud of black smoke. Two of the people sitting on the roof were thrown forward, rolling off the hood to the ground. Their prey obviously spooked, the rest of the gang attacked.

Joel cursed and grabbed at his shoulder on the way past, leaving Tommy little choice but to snatch up his rifle and scramble after him. He was glad to leave, but dreaded where they were runnin' _to_.

Oh. Flanking them. Of course.

The truck had met the spike strip of last resort - tyres being a finite product now - and come to a halt. It disgorged people who were a hell of a lot more armed than usual and were using the truck as cover from the ambush even as they picked off the small spike strip team.

Joel led the two of them to a gas station roof offside and jerked his head. Tommy knew his brother would watch his back, knew he could trust no-one else _more_. Knew that Joel would die before he'd let Tommy be killed.

But oh _God_ he didn't want to do this.

"Joel." He started. Stopped. He'd asked Joel before, in the quiet nooks where they wouldn't be overheard, and always Joel's reply had been the same. But _fuck_ that kid had _looked right at him _and if his finger had twitched he'd have been staring _into_ those eyes as he blew one and the brain behind it _out_.

His stomach roiled and all at once, he knew. He'd hit his limit. He'd had enough. With or without his brother, he was _not_ doing this any more.

"I'm leavin', Joel." He ducked behind the giant sign, letting it hide them both from the fighters below. "I can't take it no more. I can't- I can't _do_ this any more."

Joel, damn him, just looked at him. Cold, distant, impersonal.

"And do what instead?" He asked simply, like there wasn't a fight going on, like people weren't dying - or like he was waiting for Tommy to fold, like he always had in the past.

"Die!" Tommy snapped defiantly, half-hysterically. "Or live, fuck, I don't know. Join the army, join a work group. Shit, Joel, if we can get into a city - _any_ city - I don't mind working as a cleaner, or-or a scavenger. But I can't fuckin' kill _people_ any more, I can't_Ican't!_

And, mercy of mercies, something shifted in his brother's eyes.

"…fine. Just watch my back one last time. Able ain't gonna let us just _walk._"

Tommy clutched at his rifle, saw the set of his brother's shoulders change, _knew_ what he was about to do. Knew his brother would _kill _the men they'd been running with without a scrap of mercy. Knew he himself would kill 'em too, once they turned on Joel. It should have felt hypocritical.

All he felt was relief.

He nodded, wiped his face, nodded again - then set up to shoot through the gap under the sign, this time aimed towards friends and allies of three years.

Just a few more murders on his soul, and then he could just - _stop_. Just a few more. Not women nor children, just men he'd eaten with and known…

His sights rested on a heavyset man - Eddie, the fella with a hundred and one dirty jokes, the guy who always brought a cup of something to the people on night watch - raising a machete to the kid he'd seen before, one skinny arm gripped tightly in a meaty fist, the other straining for a dropped hand gun.

He took the shot.

_TOPF_

"_**Trap**_!" Harry shouted out of nowhere.

The kid hadn't said more than ten words in the month since Mark had died, but despite Harry's failure that day - and despite her persistent, toxic, _irrational_ anger at him for it - Tess was still too damned used to _reacting_ to let her pain make her ignore him.

So she hit the breaks and threw the truck into reverse, knocking off the idiots who'd been riding sentry on top - and who hadn't seen whatever a fuckin' _seven year old_ had seen.

Far as she was concerned, they deserved what they got.

Unfortunately, they'd already headed too far into the trap. A line of spikes was yanked across the road quickly enough to blow her back tyres and it was all she could do to wrench the truck side-on, providing a little more cover for them and taking herself out of easy view.

She slid over the second the truck rocked to a halt, shoving Harry hard against the door until he popped it and scrambled out. The men who'd operated the spike trap were already dead, shot down by the Fireflies she'd been escorting. They were city-recruits, all of them too green to survive the wilds in between cities. Too ignorant to stand a chance against a nation of uncontrolled infected.

But they all knew how to handle a gun.

The cracked asphalt by her feet suddenly exploded into tiny shards, a pockmark punched out by a hidden sniper. She threw herself to the side, behind a tiny brick toilet block, as Harry scrambled under the truck.

She lost sight of him then, maybe deliberately. She only had a couple of pistols on her, along with a good, sturdy hunting knife. Keeping behind cover, she out-waited her attackers. The Fireflies scattered, spread out and attacked or died, but she wasn't so young and stupid. Let them come to her, break their cover in impatience and she could pick the fuckers off with ease. Any that got too close were easy to fool with a few feminine sobbing gasps, the terror of a helpless woman with no bullets left. They lowered their guard, and she lowered their blood count.

The world was a blur of kill or be killed. Harry edged along the outskirts of that world, a tiny shape that took centre-mass shots on anyone who looked to be flanking her, putting men down without killing them - a fuckin' _waste_ of bullets. It made her so _angry_.

When the kid cried out, dragged from his hiding place by a man twice Mark's size and with a face twisted by rage, she hesitated.

The man wrenched Harry's arm, forcing him to drop his gun, and raised his machete for a killing blow.

Harry strained for his weapon with his other hand, his eyes wide with terror.

They flickered over to where he knew she was, standing in shadow and armed and his secondary parent figure of seven years.

The man's head exploded with gore. Her gun remained unfired.

Harry fell to the ground and scrambled away from the dead weight trapping his legs. He scooped up his weapon, darted to a new patch of cover and crouched out of sight of their enemies, shuddering.

She tasted bile in her throat. Her gun shook as she lifted it and resumed killing.

_TOPF_

It wouldn't have worked, if their gang hadn't trusted them.

Joel cut through their ex-allies just as dispassionately as he'd killed their victims. It was like they weren't even people, just moving furniture that bled and screamed and convulsed as they died.

Tommy watched his back like he'd promised but _holy Mary mother of God_ he didn't think he'd ever be able to forget this. Forget seein' Joel sink a knife into the spine of a man he'd shared a bottle of whiskey with, easy as you please. Forget seeing him cave another's head in with a brick. Forget seeing his brother _kill_, more nonchalantly than any man with a soul had a right to be.

He took the shots he had to, keeping his promise. He tried to believe that Alex there would have done the same to him, if the situation were reversed. He tried to forget the time that Gabe had sat next to him and confessed how sick their job made him feel, how he knew he was going to Hell because he saw it every night when he fell asleep. He tried, as he put bullets through them both for raising their own weapons in self-defence against his brother.

He had to blink hard a few times, for some reason his vision kept getting all swimmy and something was dripping down onto his hand, distracting him.

Some of their ex-victims took shots at his brother, when he was flushed into view. He put them down, he _had_ to, but it weren't long until there was nobody left but some ex-victims with a grudge… and him and his brother.

He saw Joel's hand sign and pulled back from his rifle with a shaky sigh.

For better or worse… it was over now. And he'd never kill nobody 'cept an infected ever again.

From his vantage point he saw Joel leave the bunch of corpses that used to be their comrades, walking step in step with one of their ex-victims. And wasn't that just like Joel? Smart, always a step ahead of things. Of course he woulda taken a second to endear himself to the other side, woulda have probably set something up to rescue one of 'em, or at least be _seen_ fightin' their common enemy.

He'd gotten them an in with these travellers. Maybe even a ticket into a city. He watched, weary and sick, as Joel spoke with two others, all congregating around the truck save a few who peeled off to loot the bodies. It looked like he won 'em over, at least some, because they all left again save one woman - _the_ woman - who'd been driving the truck. She kept her gun on his brother, wary like any smart person should be.

Breathing in deep through his mouth, trying to ignore the stench of blood and betrayal that was _probably_ all in his head, he slung the rifle over his shoulder and staggered over to the ladder to ground level. He put his hands up as he came around the side of the building, just in case, but after a suspicious look by the nearest of their ex-victims, he was waved over to Joel.

"So, I take it you're the brother?" The woman greeted him, suspicion in every line of her body. She was pale, drawn tight with stress and grief, worn down by the world like most people who didn't have nothin' but themselves left.

"Yes ma'am." Tommy replied warily, slowly and obviously slipping the rifle from his shoulder - held by the strap and pointed away from her - to the ground. Her lip quirked, maybe a quarter of an inch, but it didn't soften her one bit.

"These idiots'd believe anything." The woman lowered her voice, addressing Joel now more than Tommy. "Buncha green Fireflies, who think the world is broken into government, people and infected. I don't know what you said to get 'em on your side, but you'd better do _better_ - 'cause I got _no_ problem putting you _both_ down, just to be sure I won't cop a bullet in my back later on."

Movement behind her turned out to be the kid he'd almost shot and Tommy had to swallow back another surge of nausea. Standing to the side and slightly behind the woman, he was even shorter and more fragile-lookin' than before.

"Rifle-guy had us in his sights." The kid ventured. And shit, _shit_, he _knew _the kid had seen him somehow! _Fuck_.

"He didn't take the shot."

"_**Shut up**_." The woman snapped at him, vicious and colder than anything she'd had to say to _the men she held at gunpoint_.

The kid obeyed, something horrible in his expression that Tommy couldn't bear to look at.

He didn't think _Sarah _had looked so hurt the night she'd _died_.

"All I can tell you, is the truth." Joel said, low voice rumbling in the way that had women flocking to him in their youth. "And all we can do to prove ourselves is turn over our arms. We don't wanna hurt nobody, we just want into a city. _Any_ city."

The woman lifted a derisive eyebrow.

"All I'm hearing, is competition." She snorted. "Spots are limited, everyone knows that."

"There's always smuggling." Joel returned, as easy and uncaring as always. Like there weren't a bullet waiting with his name on it. "If you get a spot, we could be your people on the outside - and vice versa. You've got the look of you of someone who's done a run or two in her life."

The woman huffed a breath, a challenging sort of amusement. Tommy had seen it on a lot of different people's faces. That was Joel for you. Aggravating, immovable, unbelievable. Sometimes he thought people let him get away with shit just out of sheer admiration for the size of the balls behind it.

A jerk of her gun had them slowly disarm, setting more guns and knives on the ground to be kicked away. Unexpectedly, she then ordered the _kid_ to check them.

The _hell_? Was this a test? If they _weren't_ genuine, she'd be handing them prime hostage material. Unless… was she the same kind of person as those they'd just turned on? Was a kid nothing to her but a tool to be used?

Regardless, they both kept as still as possible as the little four-foot-nuthin' came obediently forward, his own gun left back behind the woman, his tiny little hands patting them down for concealed weapons - at least up to mid chest, as high as he could reach. The woman stared at them with rattlesnake eyes and jerked her gun again, signalling them to kneel.

They did so and the kid continued searching, sometimes yanking their pockets out and shirts up just to be sure. He came away with a package of gum from Tommy's own pocket, a shiv from Joel's and handful of bullets from them both. Back at the woman's side, he shoved the bullets in his pockets, picked up his gun and dropped the gum to the ground.

The woman clicked the safety of her pistol on and tucked it away.

"The name's Tess. This is Harry. Keep your heads down and out of our way and I'm sure we'll get along _just fine_."

Joel and Tommy exchanged a look.

"Yes ma'am." They murmured in unison.

_**TOPF**_

I like short chapters. They let me post faster.

Is it just me, or is the title for this fic… inappropriate? Or is it _very_ appropriate? It feels more light hearted than the fic itself is turning out to be.


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